


At Last

by Mazarin221b



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Unrequited Love, pre-return
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazarin221b/pseuds/Mazarin221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He walks grim streets in the grey, thunderstorm-threatened dusk, his steps echoing faintly along brick buildings and new cars and the chrome and glass and wood and stone of a city, <i>his city</i>, London, at last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Last

 

 

Sherlock Holmes looks different enough in two years —hair shorter, sleeker; body more robust— that he knows he could walk through this same neighbourhood for the next six months and find no one who would recognize him on first sight. He walks grim streets in the grey, thunderstorm-threatened dusk, his steps echoing faintly along brick buildings and new cars and the chrome and glass and wood and stone of a city, _his city_ , London, at last.

Everything he’s experienced in that time has settled on his shoulders like a cloak; the weight it gives his posture acts as a warning to any and all who come across him.  This is a man who has threatened, tortured, and killed; a man who has hunted and found; and man who has loved, and lost, and lived to come back and reclaim a life that no longer needs him. He can feel the difference down to his very bones and he watches John Watson flirt and smile in pursuit of a woman who wouldn’t have looked twice at him three years ago, when he, too, was both grim and carrying the weight of experience both noble and terrible.

So he takes the last two years and slides it from his shoulders, folds it carefully away. Deletes the weight of that time without a blink.

_image courtesey of Benbenny.tumblr.com_

 

**Author's Note:**

> For The Longest Week Drabble Fest, the week of anticipation of Sherlock's return.


End file.
